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If you talk to people that work with the homeless, rent doesn't seem to be a driving factor. Rent of any amount would be too much for folks in tents because th

If you talk to people that work with the homeless, rent doesn't seem to be a driving factor. Rent of any amount would be too much for folks in tents because they are dealing with larger issues -- often substance abuse and mental illness. That said, there are certainly people who live with family or take on roommates that otherwise would prefer to live independently due to high rents. So it is an issue. But rents declining a bit, or even a lot, wouldn't put a dent in homelessness.

atlasunshrugged 4y ago
My understanding from following a few economists on this topic is that rent is a major factor. Here's a Vox article talking about the correlation between rent and homelessness https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/14/18131047/homelessness-rent-burden-study https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/14/18131047/homelessne...
- prottog 4y ago
  I read the article and skimmed through the underlying paper; the authors of the latter are careful to note that they cannot establish a causal relationship. Interviews of homeless people, at least in some West Coast cities, indicate that drug addiction is perhaps the single biggest contributor to homelessness.
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    If you're not convinced, I can also point you to a more recent piece by Matthew Yglesias that I found compelling that drew out the relationship between housing/rent prices and homelessness. https://www.slowboring.com/p/homelessness-housing https://www.slowboring.com/p/homelessness-housing
    - prottog 4y ago
      Believe me, I'm in favor of building much, much more housing than we are now, and of a more diverse kind. But by focusing on the price of housing (whether for rent or purchase), I think the conversation gets wrongly shifted to how to directly address the problem of some people not having enough money to pay their rent or afford a down payment; and we inevitably descend into ineffective policies like rent control or affordable housing mandates on new construction. The supply of housing needs to drastically increase in housing-constrained places that suffer from homelessness. That means fewer zoning regulations, fewer environmental regulations, stronger rights of property owners to develop and sell or rent their property for what the market will bear, allowing "poorer" housing (like the boarding houses that Yglesias's article discusses), and so on and so forth. But you also need to convince the public that the people they see strung up on the street can be good neighbors; otherwise none of that policy change would happen. So we must also address drug addiction.
Puts 4y ago
Apparently there are a lot of crack heads in California then… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhy3zI3wvAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhy3zI3wvAo
- nostromo 4y ago
  Yes, there are. It’s well known there is an opioid crisis happening in the US, and this is the impact.
orwin 4y ago
I don't know for the US, but i was a homeless student in Paris for a year, lived at my school and crashing at a new friend appartment every night or so. I know homeless student who owned cars and slept in them (the school provided showers, so that was nice). Only 1/4th of the parisian homeless are living in tents or under bridges. And for the 3/4th, rent is definitely the main factor (i mean, if the cost of a 9m² was 250€ instead of 350€ over the 3.5 years i was there, i wouldn't have been homeless at all).
- sofixa 4y ago
  IMO the bigger problem in Paris is the requirements (such as someone with sufficient revenues to guarantee you'll pay your rent/pay it for you). With regards to price, there are options - it might be crap sharing an appartement in a crappy suburb, but it exists and there are tradeoffs that can be made (nicer but farther away, crappier but closer, shared to bring costs down, etc.). Also there is student housing which is quite affordable but the system is ridiculously bad. However on both points there are improvements - there's a state guarantee program for students, and the system for requesting student housing is improving, even if there still isn't enough in Paris itself.

atlasunshrugged 4y ago

My understanding from following a few economists on this topic is that rent is a major factor. Here's a Vox article talking about the correlation between rent and homelessness https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/14/18131047/homelessness-rent-burden-study https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/14/18131047/homelessne...

prottog 4y ago
I read the article and skimmed through the underlying paper; the authors of the latter are careful to note that they cannot establish a causal relationship. Interviews of homeless people, at least in some West Coast cities, indicate that drug addiction is perhaps the single biggest contributor to homelessness.
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  If you're not convinced, I can also point you to a more recent piece by Matthew Yglesias that I found compelling that drew out the relationship between housing/rent prices and homelessness. https://www.slowboring.com/p/homelessness-housing https://www.slowboring.com/p/homelessness-housing
  - prottog 4y ago
    Believe me, I'm in favor of building much, much more housing than we are now, and of a more diverse kind. But by focusing on the price of housing (whether for rent or purchase), I think the conversation gets wrongly shifted to how to directly address the problem of some people not having enough money to pay their rent or afford a down payment; and we inevitably descend into ineffective policies like rent control or affordable housing mandates on new construction. The supply of housing needs to drastically increase in housing-constrained places that suffer from homelessness. That means fewer zoning regulations, fewer environmental regulations, stronger rights of property owners to develop and sell or rent their property for what the market will bear, allowing "poorer" housing (like the boarding houses that Yglesias's article discusses), and so on and so forth. But you also need to convince the public that the people they see strung up on the street can be good neighbors; otherwise none of that policy change would happen. So we must also address drug addiction.

Puts 4y ago

Apparently there are a lot of crack heads in California then… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhy3zI3wvAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhy3zI3wvAo

nostromo 4y ago
Yes, there are. It’s well known there is an opioid crisis happening in the US, and this is the impact.

orwin 4y ago

I don't know for the US, but i was a homeless student in Paris for a year, lived at my school and crashing at a new friend appartment every night or so. I know homeless student who owned cars and slept in them (the school provided showers, so that was nice). Only 1/4th of the parisian homeless are living in tents or under bridges. And for the 3/4th, rent is definitely the main factor (i mean, if the cost of a 9m² was 250€ instead of 350€ over the 3.5 years i was there, i wouldn't have been homeless at all).

sofixa 4y ago
IMO the bigger problem in Paris is the requirements (such as someone with sufficient revenues to guarantee you'll pay your rent/pay it for you). With regards to price, there are options - it might be crap sharing an appartement in a crappy suburb, but it exists and there are tradeoffs that can be made (nicer but farther away, crappier but closer, shared to bring costs down, etc.). Also there is student housing which is quite affordable but the system is ridiculously bad. However on both points there are improvements - there's a state guarantee program for students, and the system for requesting student housing is improving, even if there still isn't enough in Paris itself.